Where Did We Come From: Different Views

Have we originated from natural or supernatural means? Was that origin something gradual or a sudden event? Where we come from has much to do with where we are going. That is why the origins issue is so important: Are we the result of naturalistic processes occurring over millions of years or the creation of God in just six days? Or is the solution something in-between: Did God use evolution to create us and the world?

Here is a sampling of how various worldviews look at origins, in alphabetical order:

Biblical Creation: A personal, all-powerful God created heaven, earth, life, and man in six days, as recorded in the first book of the Bible, Genesis. All life was created already in their general kinds, and a man and a woman were created and put in a garden called Eden. They sinned against God, so God cast them out of the perfect garden and cursed the earth. Pain and death entered. Man’s descendants followed this first error. So God judged them in a world-wide flood, saving only Noah and his family. All mankind is descendant from Noah. Just as God once created and judged the world of long ago, so He will again judge this world and recreate it anew as described in the last book of the Bible, Revelation.

Evolution: Naturalistic processes such as natural selection, or “survival of the fittest,” slowly brought changes in animal and plant populations that increased complexity of life forms. The fossil record contains the story of this gradual yet dramatic change. Originally life must have formed from non-life in a prehistoric liquid environment. Vast amounts of time allowed vast changes to slowly occur in the earth and in life. The earth is estimated to be 4.5 billion years old, and the universe even older. A “Big Bang” brought the universe worth, without input from a Creator.

New Age Evolution and Eastern Philosophy: Instead of purely naturalistic processes, the Cosmic Force or Divine within all things moved through evolution in creating the world. The Hindu worldview sees man as very ancient, evolving and creating civilizations during the time of the dinosaurs and beyond. In the New Age worldview, man is evolving into ever-higher planes of existence until he reaches divinity. When enough of mankind has reached godhood, a “new age” will arrive, bringing peace and enlightenment.

Theistic Evolution: God used evolutionary processes to create earth, the universe, life, and mankind. This is a middle ground between traditional interpretations of the Bible and the consensus of scientists of the modern era. The beginning chapters of the Bible are allegorical, with the six days in Genesis representing long ages of evolutionary activity. Another view holds that the billions of years of earth and life development occurred in the “gap” between Genesis verse 1 and 2, where the earth is still unformed and void. Either way, the Bible and science are made compatible.

We could list more worldviews, but the patterns are becoming clear. Two main differences exist: (1) either God or natural forces created the universe and life, and (2) that mode of creating was either through evolution (gradual macro-changes) or creation (sudden existence in present form). We are of the view that God created everything essentially as it appears today, so we see Biblical Creation is the best explanation for our origins. Thus, the articles in the science section of this site are composed to prove two things: That God exists and that creation was His method of making, as described in the Bible. When the evidence from complex biological design, the rapid burial of fossils, and the catastrophe inherent in the makeup of the mountains is seen and analyzed for what it records for all to see, the science of Biblical Creation proves more compellingly true than any form of evolution.

“For in six days the Lord made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day” Exodus 20:11

Seashells on Mountains? Creation and Evolution in Light of Geology

Photo from "Rock Layers Folded, Not Fractured" by Andrew Snelling

Fossils of seashells crown mountain peaks all across the earth (Brown 46), raising questions that shake the very foundation of modern man’s view of the world. Many more mysteries of geology concur with the seashells. Geology is the story of earth’s past, archived in vast rock layers hundreds of feet thick. If studied carefully, earth’s earliest moments can be discovered. Modern society interprets these early moments as a chronicle of evolutionary development over millions of years: the gradual formation of geological features and the evolution of life from single cells to human beings. But the story of geology is better explained from a radically different interpretation: a supernatural, sudden creation and a world-wide flood occurring only thousands of years ago, as described in the Biblical account of Genesis.

The fact that the Bible, a religious work penned in ancient days, is the origination of this young-earth geology brings skepticism to modern minds accustomed to looking to science for ultimate truth. The widespread scientific belief in evolution and an old earth is evident in three modern movements: secular humanism, theistic evolution, and the New Age. Though doctrinally divergent, these three worldviews consider evolution critical to their beliefs: Secular humanism holds evolution as the foundation of atheism (Noebel 125), theistic evolution states that God used evolution in creation, and the New Age embraces evolution as unleashing human potential (Noebel 145-7). But no matter what its purpose, evolution is considered self-evident. Classic proof is the fossil record, a progression of creatures from simple to complex recorded in the sedimentary layers. Famed “transitional” fossils, those representing a creature intermediate between one type and another, appear as confirmation of evolutionary theory. The slow formation of geological features and the million-year-old ages given by radiometric dating of rocks and fossils appear to solidify evolution as the best explanation of earth’s past.

But closer examination reveals that these evidences support not evolution, but Biblical creationism and catastrophe. Many earth processes thought to occur very slowly actually have much faster rates or have been misinterpreted. For example, stalactites and stalagmites, the mineral “icicles” in caves, are thought to take millions of years to form, but observations show much quicker growth rates: Five-feet long stalactites, with their adjacent stalagmites, are growing from the Lincoln Memorial’s foundation ceiling (Whitcomb 114), while Jerry Trout, an expert in caves, has visually recorded a stalactite growing “several inches in a matter of days” (Taylor qtd. in Brown 223). Similar observations hold for the multi-million-year ages of radiometric dating methods: Lava flows in New Zealand’s Mount Ngauruhoe were dated as occurring 0.27 to 3.5 million years ago, but history records them actually occurring from 1949 to 1975 (Snelling qtd. in Ham, Sarfati, & Wieland 83). Our modern dating methods are based on faulty assumptions about earth’s past, leading to these kinds of discrepancies.

Faulty interpretation also accompanies study of the fossil record. For example, claimed “transitional” fossils are not truly transitional. This is the case with horse evolution. The famed ascendence of North American horses from small three-toed varieties to the modern one-toed kind is in reverse in South America, where three-toed horse fossils are buried in “younger” rock than the rock containing the one-toed variety (Gish 191-2). Thus, South American horse fossils almost appear to show the more “primitive” horses evolving from the more “modern” one. Rather than showing evolution, these fossils are better interpreted as showing variations within animal kinds, similar to the variation present in today’s dog breeds. No one today would say that Chihuahuas are the ancestors of Great Danes, but if these two dogs were discovered as fossils, they would give the appearance of evolution from the small to the large. So such “transitional” fossils prove more problematic for evolution than helpful, suggesting that a better explanation of their origin should be considered.

Even the general appearance of progression from relatively simple creatures to higher forms in the fossil record is not consistent. Fossils often are not ordered in the rock layers according to the evolutionary sequence. Horse hoofprints are in dinosaur strata in Uzbekistan, dinosaur footprints mix with human-like ones in Turkmenistan and Arizona, and fossil insects with nectar tubes are dated 25 million years older than the alleged emergence of flowers (Brown 12). Nearly 200 more examples of “wrong-order formations” occur in America alone, as compiled by Walter Lammerts in the Creation Research Society Quarterly (Brown 67-8). The severe significance of these out-of-order fossils is aptly described by the eminent evolutionist Richard Dawkins: “Evolution could so easily be disproved if just a single fossil turned up in the wrong date order” (Dawkins 2).

Instead of evolution, geology reveals an early earth like that described in the Bible. When God created Adam and Eve, He placed them in a Paradise (Genesis 1-2). Remnants of this ideal earth are evident in the most inhabitable places: Tropical fronds have been unearthed in Antarctica, while oil companies in Alaska’s Prudhoe Bay found a vast tropical forest 1,100 to 1,700 feet below the tundra (Williams). This warm climate of lush vegetation is evident across many geologic layers (Whitcomb & Morris 243). Long life was another characteristic of early earth, with humans living nearly a thousand years (Genesis 5) and dinosaurs probably surviving to similar ages, evident from the huge sizes of dinosaurs like Tyrannosaurus Rex and Apatosaurus, since reptiles never stop growing their whole lives (Dutko). The preflood earth also possessed a civilization that built cities, created music, and forged iron and bronze tools (Genesis 4:17-22). Evidences of this earliest of societies include a gold chain in Illinois coal dated 200-300 million years before man’s traditional evolution; a woman statuette in Idaho clay dated at 2 million years, during man’s “primitive age”; and a metallic vase, inlaid with silver, that was blasted out of Massachusetts Precambrian rock dating over 600 million years ago, before practically any form of life is alleged to have existed (Cremo & Thompson 798-9, 802-6). Though the dates are wrong, these evidences show an Edenic early earth and an advanced civilization from the beginning.

But then Paradise was destroyed in a great flood (Genesis 6-8). Underground water chambers burst forth on that infamous day, gouging a crack around the earth that formed into today’s globe-encircling Mid-Oceanic Ridge (Brown 105-8, 120-1). This watery deluge deposited vast layers of sediments hundreds of miles across (Walter 12, Ham, Sarfati, & Wieland 155-6). The catastrophic formation of mountains and other features bent some of these water-softened sediment layers into gentle folds and arches that later hardened into rock (Ham, Sarfati, & Wieland 156-7). As the flood waters engulfed the earth, the vast forests of Paradise were swept away, then compressed under the flood sediments into great coal beds (Morris 107-9). Millions of creatures were trapped in the sediments and fossilized in contorted positions or in the act of swallowing their last meals (Brown 10-11). Even human beings and their artifacts were fossilized, the last remnants of that lost civilization (Brown 14, 36). After 150 days the waters receded into the newly-formed ocean basins (Genesis 8:3), leaving behind the silent witness of the rocks to that earth-shattering event.

So the evidence of geology gives a compelling case for Biblical creation and the flood. Evolution is only a mirage that at first glance appears amazingly convincing, until one steps closer to the evidence. Worldviews based on evolution have a quicksand for a foundation. But now that the true story of the rocks can be seen for what it is, there is one last issue: the significance of creation and the flood. Sudden creation of an ideal world implies an almighty Creator, and sudden destruction of this entire world implies an almighty Judge. Genesis 6 gives God’s reason for this reversal: “Then the Lord saw that the wickedness of man was great on the earth . . . and He was grieved in His heart. . . . ‘I will blot out man whom I have created’” (5-7). The story of earth’s past reveals a lesson that modern man would be wise to heed.

Works Cited

Brown, Walt. In the Beginning: Compelling Evidence for Creation and the Flood.

Phoenix, AZ: Center for Scientific Creation, 2008. Print.

Cremo, Michael A. & Richard L. Thompson. Forbidden Archeology: The Hidden History

of the Human Race. Revised. Los Angeles, CA: Bhaktivedanta Book Publishing,

Inc., 1996. Print.

Dawkins, Richard. “The Angry Evolutionist.” The Greatest Show on Earth: The Evidence

for Evolution. Free Press, 2010. Newsweek. Sept. 25, 2009. Web. Feb. 17, 2011.

Dutko, Bob. “Evidence Dinosaurs Lived With Man (and yes, went on Noah’s Ark).”

Toptenproofs.com. Top 10 Proofs. Web. Feb. 17, 2011.

Gish, Duane T. Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! El Cajon, CA: Institute for Creation

Research, 1995. Print.

Ham, Ken, Jonathan Sarfati, & Carl Wieland. The Revised & Expanded Answers Book.

Green Forest, AR: Master Books, 1990. Print.

Morris, Henry M. Scientific Creationism. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Inc., 1985.

Print.

New American Standard Bible. Anaheim, CA: Foundation Publications, Inc., 1997. Print.

Noebel, David A. Understanding the Times: The Religious Worldviews of Our Day and

the Search for Truth. Abridged ed. Colorado Springs & Manitou Springs, CO:

Association of Christian Schools International & Summit Ministries, 1995. Print.

Walter, Jeremy L. “Jeremy L. Walter.” In Six Days: Why Fifty Scientists Choose to

Believe in Creation. Ed. John F. Ashton. Green Forest, AR: Master Books, Inc.,

2000. Print.

Whitcomb, John C. The World That Perished: An Introduction to Biblical Catastrophism.

Rev. ed. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1988. Print.

Whitcomb, John C. & Henry M. Morris. The Genesis Flood: The Biblical Record And Its

Scientific Implications. Grand Rapids, MI: Baker Book House, 1961. Print.

Williams, Lindsey. “Chapter 5: Amazing Facts About the Oil Fields.” The Energy

Non-Crisis. Updated. Worth Publishing, 1980. N. pag. Reformation.org. Web. Feb. 17, 2011.

The Noose of Natural Selection: Evolution’s Own Mechanism Bites It Back

For evolutionists, there is nothing more sacred than natural selection. This is the awesome mechanism of evolutionary theory, the process of weeding out the weak and multiplying the strong, the creator of new species, new forms, new life. Again and again its powers have been told, of how over the span of billions of years it brought through trillions of mutations the first cell into being, then sea creatures, then land dwellers, then reptiles and birds and mammals and apes and, finally, man, the ever-evolving pinnacle of its creation. It is the very Mind of Nature. Simply, it is Evolution. But for Biblical creationists, natural selection is a knife in evolution’s back.

It is not a creator, but a molder of preexisting material. Consider the classic “proof” of present-day evolutionary natural selection: the peppered moth. Before the Industrial Revolution in England, these moths were white with speckling except for a rare, entirely dark variety. Their mottled light color provided excellent camouflage against bird predators when they rested on light-colored tree trunks. But as England’s industries arose and billowed huge amounts of smoke, this smoke landed as soot on tree trunks, making the mostly white moths conspicuous prey on the darkened bark. Now the dark variety thrived with its new camouflage, in places composing up to ninety-five percent of the peppered moth population.¹ This drastic change is hailed as a modern day evolution, but as Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! declares, “these moths today not only are still moths, but they are still peppered moths” (emphasis original), having been given no new genes but experiencing a mere change in the populations of varieties.² Natural selection brought nothing new; it only rearranged.

Because natural selection must work within the confines of an organism’s genetic code, it is limited in its abilities. This limitedness is even exhibited in artificial breeding, where human ingenuity should at least copy the evolutionary power supposedly held by nature’s chance. But repeatedly in the search for better egg production, milk production, etc., breeders have eventually slammed into walls from where no more change could be mustered.³ Whether natural or artificial, “microevolution” cannot lead to “macroevolution.” Even more damaging, the specialization or adaption of a species actually reduces its genetic information from its formerly wide variation, which then reduces the ability of the species to survive in varied environments.⁴ As an example, the chance of survival of a long-haired type of dog, having lost its genes for short hair in the process of adapting to a cold climate, may then be reduced if the climate warmed.⁵ Thus, natural selection is the slave to the already existing gene pool.

But now evolution has one last refuge in the realm of natural selection: mutation. These vastly rare genetic glitches, which occur in a gene about once in 100,000 generations,⁶ are now said by modern day evolutionists to occasionally improve an organism and, by providing “new” genetic information, be the key to natural selection’s creative powers. But how can errors in gene copying and injuries from radiation create any kind of new genetic material, let alone a new gene that improves an organism? Such a helpful mutation would be like a bouncing pebble improving the circuitry of a supercomputer. Mutations destroy, not create, genetic information; and observation has shown that not a single one has been witnessed to definitely improve any life form.⁷ So this faith in mutations reveals the extreme length to which modern evolutionists will travel to save their theory; not even Darwin and his contemporaries had imagined such unlikely occurrences as the foundation for evolutionary progress. For Darwin did not know that the variations in species are caused by a fixed number of genes in each organism but hypothesized that a creature’s characteristics were fluid, unfixed, easily changed by its environment and then easily inherited by its offspring.⁸ But his hypothesis was wrong. Once Gregor Mendel discovered the orderly world of genetics, eventually all of biology acknowledged its laws. Mutations cannot save evolutionists from the noose of genetics.

So natural selection is not the grand mechanism of evolution, but evidence of a fallen yet specially created world. Nature can only work within the genetic codes of creatures, but these codes have existed in all their complexity since the beginning. Through the mask of thousands of years of degeneration, the unfathomable intricacy of all creatures still testifies to the marvels of their Maker, to the One who created them all in the mere span of days. It is not nature, not evolution, but God who is the sacred and awesome Creator of Life.

Works Cited:

¹Duane Tolbert Gish, Ph.D., Evolution: The Fossils Still Say No! (El Cajon: Institute for Creation Research, 1995), p. 31.

²Ibid., p. 31.

³Ibid., p. 33.

⁴Jonathan D. Sarfati, Ph.D., Refuting Evolution 7^th ed. (Brisbane: Answers in Genesis, 1999), pp. 35-36.

⁵Ibid., pp. 34-36.

⁶World Book Encyclopedia, 1966 ed., qtd in “Scientists Speak About Mutations” (http://www.pathlights.com/ce_encyclopedia/Encyclopedia/10mut05.htm)

⁷C. P. Martin, American Scientist 41:100 (1953), qtd in Gish, Fossils Still Say No!, p. 37.

⁸Gish, Fossils Still Say No!, pp. 35-36.